Always Travel in Pairs Numb3rs24 xover
by am1019
Summary: AU, possibly. Two boys: 1 lonely, 1 a loner. What might have been. Adheres to my interpretation of canon, which may be different than some. Not canon due to injection of Jack Bauer, but I thought he needed some care and who better than the Eppes for it?


Always Travel In Pairs  
By: am1019  
Rating: 13

Warnings: Brief scene of what could be considered abuse.  
Fandom: Numb3rs/24  
Pairing: None.  
Disclaimer: I do not own or have anything to do with 24 or Numb3rs. Both shows are kept by their creators and producers.

Notes: This is the prequel to 'Homing Pigeons', which is posted on the 24 section.  
Summary: A chance meeting in a school yard. Two boys: one lonely, one a loner. A look at what might have been.

Charlie tastes copper when he hits the ground. He immediately brings his knees to his chest to make himself as small as possible before the blows start. A month ago, he would have started a litany of sorrysorrysorry, but there are only so many times he can apologize for being smart.

High school was supposed to fun. "You'll be in the same class as Donny," his mother said. "The girls are a lot prettier," his father said.

Showed what parents knew. Donny didn't even say hello to him in the hallway. And girls thought he was a curiosity, not a boyfriend. His friends from grade school—friend, singular, he thinks as he gets kicked in the back—aren't interested in anything he says anymore. They want to know about high school, the big kid stuff that goes on, and he sure as hell isn't going to tell them that he gets beat up every day. He can't even say it's the dumb kids who are taking out their jealous thuggery on him.

The kid hitting him now has brains. He's in Charlie's trig class. He and Charlie were the only students to get A's on yesterday's test. The kid also has boots. Fucking Doc Martens with the two-inch soles that he's using to ground an imprint into Charlie's back.

"You're nothing but a little wimp, are you?"

Graeme. That's his name.

Charlie is too busy spitting dirt to disagree.

"Say you're a little wimp and I'll stop. Unless you like me kicking you?"

Charlie spits mud and blood. "I'm a wimp," he says. Another little piece of himself cracks off.

His mother said that he and Donny would be together in high school. Being in the same building was not the same as being together. Charlie would walk home alone. Again. He would take the long way, past the gas station so he could use the hose in the back of the little shed to clean himself off and pet the old hound dog who slept all day and never judged a crying, bleeding little boy.

"Say you're a faggot wimp."

"I'm a…"

Suddenly, the kicking stops. Charlie curls himself tighter, waiting. But it doesn't start again. He looks over his shoulder. Graeme is on the ground, and a blond boy is standing over him with curled fists. Graeme is crying. His hands are up to protect his face. Charlie creeps onto his knees, still ready to drop into a ball again should this interloper realize he's got an easier prey in range.

"You think this is funny?" the new boy says. "You think it's funny to beat up a little kid?"

"You tell me," Graeme says.

Blond boy pulls Graeme up by the shirt and shoves him towards the school. "Go on. Get out of here."

When he turns towards Charlie, his eyes are filled with a rage that Charlie does not understand, but he knows instinctively to get the hell away from it. The boy puts his hand out. Charlie flinches.

"Come on. I'm not going to hurt you." He waits. Charlie takes his hand and is pulled to his feet with such force that he crashes into the boy's chest. The kid sets him right.

"Sorry. Overestimated how much pull I'd need to get you up." He is taller than Charlie by a head. Must be a senior, Charlie thinks. Then he wonders if the kid is a student at all, since he is wearing a t-shirt with a swear word on it, and Charlie knows that kids get sent home for that sort of thing.

"If that's a crack at how small I am, I've already heard it," Charlie says.

"It wasn't. Look, I'm sorry. He won't hurt you again."

"How do you know that?"

"He's my brother. He's scared of me." He holds his hand out. "I'm Jack."

"Charlie." Charlie shakes it. None of the kids in high school shake hands. Charlie thought he was the only one. He shakes hands with his doctors, his therapists, his tutors. And now Jack. "Thank you."

"So, Charlie, why didn't you fight back?"

"Are you kidding me? You said yourself how small I am."

"Small doesn't mean helpless."

"What would you know about it?"

"I'll show you, if you want. I can teach you how to take a punch. And how to throw one. Although I think we'll start with something slightly more important."

"What's that?"

"How to duck." He smiles.

Charlie's cheeks flush. "I don't know if I can. I have to study. I'm working on a lot of projects on my own…"

"Charlie, do you want to be a whiz kid who gets through high school with a bunch of projects under your belt or do you want to be a whiz kid who gets beat up every day and doesn't get anything done because how much do you think you can do when that's happening?"

"I see what you mean."

"I'll walk you home. We'll start tonight."

"No. I…"

"You got something else to do?"

"No, it's just… I don't want my family to know."

"Alright. We can go to my house."

"With Graeme?"

"Right. Do you know of another place?"

"Actually, I do."

"Great."

"So, what do you want me to do for you?"

"You can explain my homework to me if you're inclined."

Charlie stiffened. "I don't do homework for people anymore."

"Not do it. Just help me. You won't have to pick up a pencil. I just need someone to explain the logistics of math to me."

"Math is all logic."

"That's what I'm told."

Charlie smiles.

"Let's go. Where's this secret place of yours?"

Charlie takes him to the gas station shed. Introduces him to the dog.

"Alright, come on. I'm going to throw some punches, slowly, so you see them coming, and I want you to lean back, like this." Jack demonstrates swaying backwards in a circle until he comes upright again.

"OK."

They practice awhile. Charlie is better than he thought it would be. It helps that Jack praises him every time he gets it right and doesn't get mad at him when Jack lightly connects. Doing something with Jack is more fun than doing something with Donny, who always yells at him because he isn't coordinated.

Charlie is so into the leaning and swaying that he hardly notices when Jack goes faster. He feels the rhythm. But it doesn't last and eventually Jack nails him on the shoulder, sending him stumbling backwards.

"Sorry," Jack says. "Maybe we should stop."

"It's alright. Let's keep going."

"Alright. This time, I want you to watch my shoulders. See if you can tell where the punch is coming from and then dodge it."

They do that for awhile.

"So, this is great for when I'm standing,"Charlie says, "but most of the time I get knocked down from behind."

"Run at me from behind," Jack says. He turns around and takes a few steps away.

"What?"

"Charlie, do the people who attack you ask questions or do they throw themselves at you?"

"Sometimes they yell."

"Do to me what they do to you."

Charlie takes a breath. He balls his fists. His feet hit the ground three times and then he launches himself onto Jack. Jack's hands snap up and catch his shirt as Jack bends forwards and in less than a second Charlie is on the ground on his back with Jack grinning down at him.

"Think you can teach me that?"

"It's all in the leverage," Jack says. "But if we're going to be doing that one, we should find a mattress to land on."

"I'll see what I can do," Charlie says.

The station lights click on. "Shit, it's late," Jack says. "Come on, I'll walk you home."

"You don't have to."

"You can explain my calculus homework on the way."

"You're in calculus? I thought you weren't smart with math."

"I wing it." Jack grins and Charlie has the idea that Jack could wing his way through anything.

"Alright. I just live a few blocks away."

Jack picks up his bag. He hands Charlie his assignment. Charlie looks it over and hands it back. "I think I can explain this."

"In a way that I'll understand?"

"If not, I'll try again." He smiles.

Jack slings his bag over his shoulder. As they start walking, Charlie thinks that this is what high school was supposed to be like. Hell, this is what having an older brother was supposed to be like.

------------------------------

There are cookies on the kitchen table when Jack walks in at half past eight. Three arranged in a triangle on a little yellow plate and a note from his mother that she has gone to bed with a headache and he should help himself. He takes one in each hand and one in his mouth and heads upstairs. He stops at her door, pushes it open a crack until he can see her outline beneath the gray-blue comforter.

"Jackie?" she says. "Are you alright?"

"That's what I was going to ask you." He takes the cookie out of his mouth and talks around the crumbs on his tongue.

"It's just my head, honey. Turn the light out in the hall, would you?"

"Yeah. Goodnight, mom."  
"Goodnight, honey."

He eases the door closed. The light switch is next to his room, and he flicks it off as he gets near. The light to his room is on, which means that either Graeme is using his computer, or…

"Sit down, Jack." His father is there, at his desk, looking at him like he's something stuck to his shoe.

Jack sits. Something moves behind him and out of the corner of his eye he sees Graeme, twitching in that excited way of his. He has something coiled in his hands. The bottom that supports Jack's hope falls out.

"Graeme told me what happened today. Would you like to add anything?" his father says.

Jack glares right back at his father. The old man is not the only one disappointed. Not the only one let down here. "Did he tell you what he was doing before I did whatever he said I did?"

His father's lips flatten and disappear. "Survival of the fittest, Jack. That's how you get a head." He nods at Graeme.

Graeme emerges from the shadow and stands beaming at Jack. "Against the wall, Jack." He turns to their father. "Clothes on or off, dad?"

"You decide."

Jack is already taking his shirt off. He knows what the answer will be. He positions himself against the wall, hands on either side of his poster of Barbarella. At least he'll be shoved against something pleasant.

One of these days, he'll get the hell out. Mom's cookies aren't enough to put up with this. Graeme is using the buckle end. Jack grinds his teeth and gets to know Barbarella's tits a little better. He can feel blood trickling down his legs. Graeme is fired up. When dad says it's enough, Jack is barely standing. He turns around, staggers to his bed.

"Hold it there, Jack," his dad says, and Jack freezes, half-leaned over the mattress.

"Please," he says, his voice cracked like he smokes six packs a day.

With one hand on Jack's shoulder, his father lays three stripes across his ass. "This is so you know that I don't let Graeme to all the dirty work. I love you enough to punish you myself." He sounds like he expects to be thanked. Jack keeps his lips tight because the words trapped behind them have nothing to do with gratitude. He eases Jack onto the bed by the hand still on his shoulder. Jack slumps on his side. No tears. They would say that tears are for the weak. Jack does not think so. He just thinks that they don't deserve to see him cry.

"I hope you'll think more carefully about your actions tomorrow, Jack," dad says. "And I've told you before to get rid of that shirt. It's crass."

Jack is quiet as they leave. Graeme has left the belt on the floor. A threat. A reminder. Jack is thinking very carefully about his actions tomorrow.

The first thing he is going to do is teach Charlie how to beat the shit out of Graeme.

-------------

"Well. Is this some new kind of math?" Alan says. He looks like he isn't sure if he should back out of the room or not, so he stands in the limbo of the doorway, scratching his head.

Charlie scrambles off of Jack. "Dad, uh, this is Jack. We were just, uh, it's not math." A glance at this father tells him that this explanation has not cleared things up.

"I'm teaching Charlie how to throw someone," Jack says, standing himself.

Alan looks relieved. "Oh. Well, that's great. That's…wonderful. Because I was thinking…" He gestures at the bed. "You were practicing for something else. Not that I'm against…that…. but Charlie is only 13, so in that sense, I object. Strongly."

"I understand, sir," Jack says, and he looks so somber that Alan has to laugh.

"We needed someplace soft to land," Charlie says, an explanation that works, this time.

"You know," Alan says, "if you wanted you could drag the inflatable mattress out to the yard. You could fling yourselves on that until the cows come home."

"This is fine," Charlie says.

Alan squints down at his baby son and squares his hands on his hips. "It may be fine for you, Charlie, but I think your mother will have other things to say when she sees the footprints on her white quilt."

"Oh. Right," Charlie says.

Jack edges in front of Charlie. Alan looks at him oddly. I can take him, Jack thinks. If it comes to that. At his house, he would be beaten for a footprint before he had a chance to think about it. He had been stupid to put Charlie in danger over something so trivial. Rather defeated the point of teaching him how to be on the offensive.

"Charlie, go see if your mother needs help in the kitchen," Alan says. "You're staying for dinner, aren't you, Jack?"

A flash of uncertainty in the Jack's eyes. "What are we having?" Grabbing on to a little swagger that he kept stored for facing men down.

"Lasagna," Alan says. "Charlie, go on, please."

Charlie goes. He runs down the stairs because he is still enough of a little boy to forget that it is not always necessary to go everywhere at top speed.

Alan is standing in the doorway. Jack schools himself to keep his arms at his sides and look him in the eye. Dodge left, he thinks, when Alan's right hand starts to rise.

Alan scratches his neck and watches as the boy in front of him twitches like he's got St. Vitus's Dance. He drops his hand. The boy is coiled, waiting, watching. Alan scratches his ear. The boy jerks again.

The old man is playing some kind of game with him. Jack doesn't know what he wants. He keeps moving his damn hand like he's testing him.

"Is Charlie happy at school?" Alan says.

"He's really smart," Jack says.

"Yeah." It's not really an answer, except it is because they both know what happens to the really smart at school. Not quite as bad as what happens to kiddie rapists in prison, but just as apt to mess you up for life.

"Jack," Alan says, "you can come here anytime. It'll be safe here for you." He doesn't know why he says it, and when the boy freezes he wishes he hadn't.

"What makes you think I need someplace safe?" Jack says.

"Doesn't everyone?" Alan says.

"Fraternal, huh?" Donny says.

"Yeah," Jack says. The way Charlie talks about Donny ('Don, he said, but he's already Donny in Jack's mind.), Jack had expected an Adonis to show up, but instead it's just another awkward Jewish kid in a grass-stained baseball uniform and backwards baseball cap shooting peas at his little brother whenever their parents look away.

"Me and Charlie are like fraternal twins," Donny says.

"Don, twins means you're the same age," Charlie says.

"I know that, dipshit. I just mean we're in the same grade. We're going through the same things. Like Graeme and Jack."

"We're not going through the same things," Charlie says, and then looks over and stares at Jack because they said it at the same time. Jack stabs his spinach.

"Well, look, if you don't want to make friends…" Donny says.

"He's got a friend, " Jack says before Charlie can say anything.

"A very good friend," Alan says.

"That's, yeah, that's great, Charlie," Donny says, and he almost looks like he means it.

---------------------------------------------------

"How come we never go to your house?" Charlie says.

"Because of Graeme."

"Oh. Right." From the bright, confused smile Charlie is giving, Jack realizes that Charlie has completely forgotten why they met in the first place. Perhaps Charlie is not the ideal weapon against his brother after all.

On the other hand, Jack is now getting 85s on his calculus tests, a ten point improvement. (Though when he told Charlie about the 85, the kid had apologized until Jack assured him that it was much better than usual.)

"Well, can we go sometime?" Charlie says. "We're always at my house."

"I like your house." Hell, he has even started to like Donny, who isn't nearly as obnoxious as first impressions would imply. He has seen him, sometimes, watching Charlie with an expression close to tenderness when he thinks no one is looking. Plus, he's a half-decent ball player and not too conceited about it.

"What's so great about my house?" Charlie says. Jack gets the meaning. 'Why is it better than yours' the unspoken question.

"My mom never makes lasagna," Jack says, which is true. He leaves the other truths that keep him coming back unsaid.

Charlie stands up and looks at his imprint in the flattened grass. "Show me another throw," he says.

Jack looks up at him. "In a minute. It's a good place you've got here, Charlie. You know?"

"I know." The stars are out, and when he looks at them, his eyes chart and graph them. It's a magic he can't share with anyone. It frightens most people, these things they don't understand. But for him, it means one thing. He will never be lost so long as he has the stars.

----------------------------------

If Jack and Graeme got together, as brothers, the old man would have some reckoning to do for the way he pits them against each other. Brothers should not have split loyalties. But Graeme isn't smart enough to figure that out or to realize that his father is playing him. Jack feels bad for Graeme sometimes, but mostly he is just sick of him. Sick of his leeching, his leering, his superiority. Sick of him being dad's favorite. Jack isn't anyone's favorite. Not even mom, who leaves cookies out instead of sandwiches when someone misses dinner and says she "loves you boys both the same."

---------------------------------

Jack gets his diploma first, then watches as Charlie and Don walk across the stage. Charlie is valedictorian, and his speech goes over the heads of everyone there, but Jack thinks that if they heard the original version they would truly know what it meant to be confused. His parents are there, stepping out together for the first time in he can't remember when.

Charlie brings Alan and Margaret over and Jack has no choice but to introduce them. Charlie stands beaming, showing off his diploma. Alan has one hand on Don's shoulder and one hand on Charlie's as he talks to Jack's father. As the Eppeses start to leave, Alan says, "Jack, you'll be over later, won't you?"

He glances at Jack's father, testing him, perhaps, to see if he will let another boy's father make off with his son.

"I can come now," Jack says. His father grabs him with his voice before he takes a step.

"Actually, we'd like Jackie at home. It's a family, day." Jack's stomach twists into knots, as it does whenever his father calls him that name.

"Sorry," Jack says to Alan, to Charlie.  
"That's alright, son," Alan says. Jack knows that nothing Alan says is an accident. His own father has never called him son with as much honesty as Alan.

"Call me," Charlie yells as they start to walk away.

"They seem nice," Jack's mother says.

She is wearing a new hat.

-----------------------------------------------------

Jack gets a job hefting boxes at UPS over the summer. It is better than working at his father's company, where Graeme is holed up before he heads to his Ivy League school. The more his father tells him to think about college, the more Jack puts it off. He has dinner with Charlie and his family once a week, but it's not the same as it was. Charlie is doing a summer intensive at Cal-Tech. He sits at the dinner table and is "Professor Fleinhardt this, Professor Fleinhardt that, Professor Fleinhardt said I was potentially the best student he's ever had." Jack is pretty sure he hates Professor Fleinhardt.

Then Alan, in passing, points out that from a linguistic point of view, any student could potentially be the best, and asks to be handed the salt, and that shuts Charlie up because apparently there are some things that take time to sink in, even for a genius.

------------------------

"You know what, Jack?" Charlie says. They are in the yard again, sleeping bags bunched under their heads because it is too hot to roll them out.

"What?"

"You're the first real friend I ever had."

Jack could say the same and it would be true. And it would not be true. So he says what is true, in heart. "You're the first real brother I ever had."

Charlie doesn't say anything.

"It's ok, Charlie. I'm not trying to replace Don or anything. I'm just saying that I feel closer to you guys than to Graeme."

"No, I know. I was just thinking—the whole reason we met was because of him and I never did beat him up like you wanted me to." Charlie sounds worried, like Jack is going storm off from being reminded that Charlie has not held up an imagined bargain.

"I never wanted you to. I just wanted to show you what to do in case he came at you again."

Charlie pokes him in the side and Jack curls up to avoid being tickled. "You wanted me to kick the crap out of him." He whispers the swear word.

"Well. Maybe a little."

Charlie pokes him again and giggles. Jack pokes back. They are drunk on humidity and the sound of crickets. "Don't worry," Charlie says. "I'll get around to it one of these days."

"Naw, that's alright. He's my problem. You can practice flipping Don now."

"Oh, I already have," Charlie says. He laughs and laughs and laughs, his voice as gay and bright as washed glass.

Jack races to the Eppes's first thing when he gets his uniform on. He wants them to see it first, before his father can get to him and tell him he's wasting his life, before Graeme can tell him that "I see you've opted for the less intellectual route. Well, that makes sense for you, Jack." Before his mother can give him another fucking cookie.

The station wagon is loaded up when he pulls into the driveway in his clunker Chevy bought with UPS wages, and the whole family is standing on the porch.

"Well, hello soldier," Alan says as Jack gets out of his car.

"Hi. You guys going somewhere?"

"Charlie is starting at Princeton next week," Margaret says. "We're heading up early to get him settled.

"Oh. Wow."

"What are you doing?" Charlie says. He is staring at him, as if he expects him to fall over, as if having that uniform on, anywhere, will automatically attract bullets.

"I've enlisted," Jack says. "I ship out tomorrow."

"Where to?" Don says.

"Don't know." He is still staring at the car and at Charlie.

"Could it be that you boys didn't tell each other what you were planning at the end of the summer?" Alan says. "Margaret, what did I say about boys being stupid?"

"I believe you said that boys were boys, dear."

"What's the difference?"

"Hey!" Don says, the only one to catch the insult. Alan sighs and smiles at him.

"I guess we didn't want to admit that summer was going to end," Jack says.

"Yeah." Charlie's hands are squashed in his pockets.

"Could we have a minute?" Jack says. The rest of the family moves off and pretends to be interested in the shrubbery around the porch.

Jack and Charlie stand face to face, feet scuffling circles in the gravel. "If you ever need help in math, call me. I don't know my number yet, but you can ask Dad."

"Yeah."

"And, you know, when you're back in town, you should stop by and see him and mom. They'd like that."

"Yeah."

"And Don, too."

"Yeah." Charlie has grown up so much in nine months. Jack can hardly believe he is talking to the same boy he first met. This boy is quiet. He is confident. 'I did that,' Jack thinks. 'I did some of that.'

"Listen, Charlie, you probably won't have as much trouble in college. I'm pretty sure that beating up geniuses is mainly a high school thing, but if you do…"

"Dodge left, get low, and wedge my leg behind their knee. I know."

"Right."

"Jack. Be careful."

"You too."

Charlie hugs him, and Jack hugs back until they hear a chorus of 'awws' coming from the porch.

"That's enough from the peanut gallery," Charlie says as he steps back.

"Come on, Charlie. We have to go if we're going to make it to Grandma's before dark," Margaret says.

She and Charlie hug everyone, including Jack, one more time and bundle into the car. They all wave until it rounds the corner.

"I've got a new deck of cards," Don says. "Want to be our third?"

"I should probably be getting home."

"Jack, there's lasagna inside," Alan says.

"Well, if it's just going to go to waste…"

"I'm certain it will," Alan says. He holds the door open and gestures the boys inside. Jack follows Don with Alan closing the door behind him.

Jack sleeps in Charlie's room that night. In the morning, he is up and out at 4 am, home getting his rucksack and heading for the Greyhound bus to meet his squadron. He drops a note on top of the plate of cookies and walks out without taking any.

Graeme will be the first one to read it in the morning. "Joined up", it says. "Gone to New York for marching orders. Jack."

Graeme will eat his cereal and roll the note into a ball. He will start to think. With Jack gone, who will he use to distract his father?

Graeme has always hated Jack, but never so much as now.

And so, without knowing it, Jack, sitting on a bus, on his way to a city he has never been, has emerged from childhood a winner, just like another former little boy, sitting in a station wagon next to his mother, has, this year, with the help of his good friend, his best friend, his only friend, grown into a sometime-immature but promising young man.

The End


End file.
